Tears of Change

It’s been a crazy expensive week at the Scherer household. Our air conditioner went out and had to be replaced and someone (we suspect a neighbor) apparently turned us in for a having a dead Sycamore tree in our front yard. We were given 9 days to have it removed or face fines from the City of Tulsa. Needless to say, it was a shock.

But we had been working to save this centerpiece to our front yard and you could tell that it had been cut and cared for. The next door neighbor told me that the house was built around the tree so we know that it was more than forty five years old. We love our neighborhood because of the wide streets and all the trees. This same neighbor lost her Sycamore tree in her front yard about 5 years ago. She told me that her children had always played under that tree and when they cut it down, she had cried.

I have to admit that as a person who cries regularly, that I didn’t judge her fore her emotions but decided that would not be happening to me. After all, it was just a tree. Yes, you guessed it, when that tree came crashing down and our front yard gaped open, I teared up. At the time I was thinking about how that tree had been there all 19 years that we have lived in our home. I was thinking about how our yard was designed around that beautiful tree and how it changed the look of our property shockingly. It would never be the same, it would never look like it did when my kids were growing up in our home. They were tears of change.

Change is always hard. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how open minded that you think you are, we don’t do well with uncertainty. And change leaves us uncertain. Change means that we face the reality that we can not keep things the same forever. But change is not always bad. Often change leads to new ideas, growth and potential.

We have seen lots of change over the last few years. Many of the faces in the pews are new. We have new Sunday School classes and new families. We miss people that we thought would never walk away from our community because we love it here. Our schedule on Sunday morning has changed, our pastors have changed, and many of our staff retired after decades of faithful service. But, guess what folks, our new staff and members are wonderful! We have some incredible people who have chosen to be in community with us out of all the churches in the area. We are financially stable due to the paying off of our building. We had seven babies born in our congregation last year. We have a beautiful, loving, faithful, and servant minded church community and I would rather be here than anywhere else.

There have also been changes around us in our district and at the conference level of the church. The Oklahoma conference is now divided into 5 areas called Districts with a Superintendent for each area. Our previous DS, Rev. Connie Gibson has been appointed to the Oklahoma Conference as the Assistant to the Bishop. Connie has been managing the benefits for the Oklahoma Conference in addition to her role as our DS. On Sept 1, we will have a new Bishop as our ecclesiastical leader. Our new district is Northeast District and our fearless leader is Rev. Terry Koehn. I know (and like) Terry because he served on the committee that evaluated me and recommended me for the ministry. He will be joining us for worship on Aug. 25th and will be in the Chapel during the Sunday school hour if you would like to meet him. On that same day, we will be hearing from some of the residents from Exodus House for our Mission Moment. It will be a very connectional ministry kinda day.

Jesus talked a lot about pruning or cutting down trees that did not bear fruit. We have been pruned and we have the scars to prove it. But we are now ready to bear new fruit for the kingdom of God. No tears necessary. God has got this. I can’t wait to see what will be revealed through the Holy Spirit!

Love,